Ghyll talk:Cartographer's Nerves

Some commentary on your notes at the bottom as I understand them as they are written. If read the way it sounds, then the length of all material bodies travelling in the ether is 0. IE, since light propogates instantly (and therefore has infinite velocity) then the ratio of any objects velocity to that of light is 0 unless that object is also an instantly propogating mechanism.

As a commentary on making everything in Ghyll relativistic even at low speeds, ie, things like the distance to grandma's house, this is going to make a map nigh impossible for Ghyll. One time the distance could be 8 hours to an individual observer walking at what he believes is a fixed pace while another time it might be 3. In addition, two observers starting off at nigh identical times might arrive days, months, or years apart from one another due to some simple factor like the fact that they can't be standing inside of one another when they start.

Also, if distance of any material is a function of such an astounding range of factors, then life would have a difficult time functioning. Buildings would change and contract based upon whether you took a bath or not, the distance between sub-particles in your body might become vast due to a way you moved your arm.

My thoughts are that at least for sanity of mind we ought to try and keep ourselves living in what could at least marginally be called a Newtonian Universe for everyday life. Things like rolling a rock up a hill should always result in it coming back with a relatively predictable velocity, because otherwise the difficulties in creating a functional society are almost too vast to surmount.

Exotic behavior could be limited to a subset of materials which defy some but not all of the laws of Newtonian physics or are relativistic within somewhat constrained bounds. IE. A bindlet ball isn't suddenly going to become the size of the world or shrink out of existence, because both of those would preclude ever having a game. --Araes Domandred 08:39, 20 Sep 2004 (EDT)

I actually abandoned the physics of the thing for precisely those reasons, going with a more mystic "Historio-Physis" effect. That is, the size, and shape of things is mutable, but not while you're watching. Kinda cheezy, but fits well with the overall project of this lexicon, gets me out of drawing a map, and helps explain why everything in Ghyll seems to depend on elaborate calculations involving a zillion variables. --Joe Bowers 14:10, 20 Sep 2004 (EDT)

Fascinating. Kind of a reverse Heisenburg effect? --DrBacchus 14:27, 23 Sep 2004 (EDT)

Please note that I've hooked the accuracy of the entry to the accuracy of the sources, so if you really hate this stuff, or think there is no way giant insects would be trying to recreate the world and gain ultimate power by writing an encyclopedia (that monster of consensus :), you can always make it clear that Doc Rockett is a total crackpot or Mother Mutton ate babies or whatever. I don't want to spoil anything for anybody. --Joe Bowers 17:09, 23 Sep 2004 (EDT)

Nice piece of work - and the bit at the end opens up many opportunities for future scholarly debate. Love it. --Dok 19:56, 23 Sep 2004 (EDT)

A very heady entry, but enjoyable to think about. To play the devil's advocate, instead of commissioning you to draw a map of Ghyll, it would make the most sense to commission everyone to create their own map of Ghyll <g>. Seriously though, if we are giant bugs, then this philosophy seems to tie in with known behaviors of Earth bugs: wasps, ants, and assuredly others, are constantly growing their homes and being rebuilt or redesigned, and scent trails eventually erode with disuse, being replaced with more widely agreed upon (continually used) paths. Hell, only very few humans are trailblazers: we invaribly walk on the path that has been put before it, never swaying. Does group think and consensus ever solidify a location? --Morbus Iff 20:58, 23 Sep 2004 (EDT)